Search

My Other Blog

My NYT Bestseller!

What's a Wreck?

A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

Thanks to wreckporter Robert W., who tells me this cake is currently sitting on a bakery counter - right next to that first picture - as a means of advertising. Or, as Robert suspects, perhaps more as a warning.

P.S. The longer you look at this, the funnier it gets. Seriously. Can we take a moment to "appreciate" those bottom borders? And the fact that the baker used the giant shell tip to do all the delicate piping work? Huh? Can we?

Reader Comments (60)

Maybe, just MAYBE, the bakers put this version of the cake out there because they knew that their patrons have a nasty habit of sticking fingers in the icing of freshly decorated cakes (as is evidenced by the lovely drag marks and squishes all along the bottom layer)? Y'know, so their patrons can enjoy how delicious the icing is, without sacrificing hours and hours worth of the bakers' work?

I've never quite understood the "make a real copy to put on the counter" concept. Then you have to put a "do not touch" sign by it or you get something similar to the bottom layer of the cake (I wonder if the messed up loop on the top tier suffered a similar problem). I'd make it in plaster (something that's soft like frosting, but sets up hard) personally. But then you have to put up a "do not eat-inedible" sign.

Though in this case, it's always nice to give the customer fair warning on what the cake's really going to look like. The flower spray looks nice....

There seems to be some confusion here. This isn't a cake -- it's the top of a Corinthian-style pillar found on the ruined Temple of Wreckopea -- the Goddess of Cake Decorating and Plaster Work -- in Athens. The degree of preservation is really stunning, with the only real damage visible on the right. You can tell it's from the Wreckopean period because of the width of the plaster swirls -- they didn't have the technology to make decorating/plastering tips with smaller openings until the Byzantine period. All modern wedding cakes owe their present design to Wreckopean architecture, although in recent years you see more influence from the Fondantian goddesses.

This is kind of sad, actually. It looks to me like it could have been a nice cake, or at least a passable one, even if it wasn't an exact copy. Instead it sits on the counter, smushed and unloved. Poor little thing!

Sometimes I wonder if I should get into cake decorating. OBVIOUSLY I can do better than some of the bakers out there *shudder* Giant shell tip for delicate piping...smushed icing on the display cake...jammed in flowers haphazardly... sitting next to the lovely picture. It makes me cringe inside!

"So, were all the #2 and #3 piping tubes in the dishwasher?" No, no, all the tips were in use; there was just a little mix-up. Further down the bakery counter, you will find some very skinny churros.

How long do you suppose they'll leave the cake sitting out? Will they rotate it periodically to expose new areas of frosting to curious fingers? After a few months, will the entire surface be rendered completely smooth by the hands of a thousand unwashed shoppers?

Three possibilities: 1.) The first picture originated at a nearby competitor and was planted by agents for same. 2.) The cake was returned by a customer, who also took the second picture. 3.) The wreckerator is really into irony. It's a tough call.

If that cake was the best I could do (it might be uncomfortably close), I wouldn't want it seen in the same city as the first picture. Of course, if that cake was the best I could do (and that is what I was being paid to do), I'd already have the other-line-of-work search underway.

I blame the parent(s). They were one of those overly supportive, parents who LIE to you and tell you your dried noodle necklace looks JUST AS GOOD as those store bought ones. And the poor wreckerator believed it all this time. How else can you explain looking at the photo and then looking at the actual cake and saying, "Yup. That's so good, I'll display them together"? Brainwashing. That's how you explain it. Brainwashing.

Well, at least they have someone skilled enough to do the flowers--can you request a specific baker? Or, maybe they just buy those...in which case, you could ask "where do you get these lovely flowers?", and then order your cake from there!

Wow the level of fail in this cake is [Red Alert Einstein}incredible[[Red Alert Einstein/] on so may levels. The 'buttercreme' is so poorly smoothed and looks so haphazard. The use of only one kind of decorating tip is insanely stupid. It just reeks of laziness. Give me 3 hours and I could do a better job and that isn't even trying.

I'd like to point out that the cupcakes in the picture are just that...individual cupcakes arranged like a flower on a plate, not cupcake cakes. Big difference! Not all cupcakes are evil! LOL! The wreckerator on the other hand...

This always reminds me of when I had my wedding cake made. My mother found a local bakery that had apparently won awards for being the best bakery (nobody said the best at cakes...just baking, mind you...maybe they had the best cookies...) and walking in for the meeting I was horrified to see not a single picture of cakes they had done themselves. All were clipped out of magazines with the promise hanging in the air of "sure we can do it!". I was getting uneasy and was already debating how I would explain to my mother that obviously they couldn't do it when I spied a lonely display cake on a shelf all the way near the ceiling. It was actually rather nice, despite the whole thing being randomly piped curlicues (it actually made a cute lace-ish surface), and plastic roses draped in the icing. THAT WAS IT! I wasn't particularly picky or set in stone about my design. I asked them if the decorator that did that display still worked there and said, "I want that! Except with buttercream flowers instead of those plastic ones!"

Lo and behold, I deftly missed a cake wreck that day. It was a lovely cake. (and completely edible)

There actually is a plaster product to make display cakes and it’s almost as nasty to work with as the whipped topping (but it may be tastier). It barely sticks to itself so borders crumble off easily which left me wondering why anyone bothered. I’ve seen a few of the “old” looking cakes here that I thought were made from it. (horrified shudder)

They gumpaste flowers were probably bought ready-made (usually made in the Philippines), which is likely the only reason they look like the ones in the photo. There are a number of websites where you can mail order gumpaste flowers, though they tend to have thicker petals than those made by local experts, since they need to survive shipping.

Well if that doesn't scare off potential customers I don't know what will. I would rather take the picture home than that cake lol. Honestly do they realize that the cake alone shows that they can't do what is advertised or do they think no one will notice? Gotta love truth in advertising :D

SOMETIMES when I'm at home making an everyday cake for my kids just so I can play with icing, just SOMETIMES, I don't want to search for the tip I know I should use and I willy nilly any tip to play with... THAT's what this looks like!!